29
" Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being " in love" , which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. "
30
" I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue. "
― Pablo Neruda
33
" We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness. "
― Hunter S. Thompson , The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
40
" I will love you always. When this red hair is white, I will still love you.
When the smooth softness of youth is replaced by the delicate softness of age, I will still want
to touch your skin. When your face is full of the lines of every smile you have ever smiled,
of every surprise I have seen flash through your eyes, when every tear you have ever cried has
left its mark upon your face,I will treasure you all the more, because I was there to see it all.
I will share your life with you, Meredith, and I will love you until the last breath leaves your
body or mine. "
― Laurell K. Hamilton , A Lick of Frost (Merry Gentry, #6)